1939 Returning

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1939 Returning is a song written by Peter Doherty, on which Amy Winehouse was supposed to play the acoustic guitar with Doherty on vocals.

In a February 2009 interview with NME, Doherty specified, "There is a version with Amy Winehouse duetting on this. She sounds amazing on it. ... But Stephen Street didn't really want to go ahead with it, which is a shame. But he just said that it would have made it a completely different song. I have the recording on a phone somewhere and she was up for [re-recording] it but... yeah, probably couldn't afford it anyway."

Doherty said that the lyrics of the song were inspired by a dream he had, in which he was washing the windows of an Italian 1930's butcher shop. The finished album version tells the story of his grandmother Dolly, to whom Doherty dedicated his NME Award for Best Solo Artist in February 2009. In an interview with The Sun, Doherty said of the song, "It’s my nanna. She was evacuated in the war and went out west. Three or four years ago, the council shipped her out west again to sheltered accommodation. I always said to her, ‘When I make it, I’ll get you a big house in the country’ but she’s so proud. She wouldn’t take anything from me."

Fans first heard the song when Doherty played it acoustically during an interview with BBC Radio 6. He has since occasionally played the song in live solo sets. In 2008 a video was posted on Doherty's Youtube channel in which Doherty, Blur guitarist Graham Coxon, and solo album producer Stephen Street were in the process of recording the song.

On January 13, 2009, "1939 Returning" was reported to be track #3 on Peter Doherty's solo album, Grace/Wastelands. In its track-by-track guide to the album in January 2009, the NME described the song as "an atmospheric swirl that fits with ‘Arcadie‘ as one of the more ‘bare bones’ efforts..."